Hello from Australia - a self publishing husband/wife team in the tropics :)

[GeoffC]

Trials of life ....

[neilmarr]

An interesting informal ebook statistic, Paul: At our own on-site bookstore, over ten years or so, we saw insignificant sales of ebooks rise to about ten percent in 2009 with paperbacks representing the other 90%

So far in 2010 there's been a complete turn-about -- ebooks so far represent over 90% of book sales from our own store this year.

Now that our US registration has come through at last so that we can deal direct with the huge new ebook stores that disqualify publishers without an 'official' US presence, we're kinda excited to see if our own on-site experience will be reflected in international sales through third-party retail.

Hoots. Neil

[MrPLD]

It is interesting how it can take years of very slow growth in a market and then it explodes, good old critical mass behaviours.

I'll be very curious to see how I react to having a K3 in the house when it finally arrives here ( looks like another 7 days - I'm going to have to try not look excited when it arrives ).

What sort of business relationship are you referring to with regards to now having your registration come through?

Regards,
Paul.

[MrPLD]

Well, the good news is that the positive reviews are rolling in - they're rather scattered over the place but now I need to put them together in a cohesive manner.

Paul

[neilmarr]

Hi Paul:

The deal at all the major stores means that a publisher must have an 'official' US presence. For independent 'foreign' authors, this means jumping through hoops or giving up on the major marketplace.

We decided to go the whole hog and hired a US lawyer to register BeWrite Bools Lcc in the USA. It took over six months of hard work and no little expense, but our registration is rubber-stamped this month.

It allows us now to provide our entire catalogue and all new releases with the major players: Amazon for Kindle, Barnes & Noble for Nook, Apple for iPad, etc, etc, etc. It'll make a huge difference.

We still have a lot of hard technical work ahead, though, even as we sign contracts with these etailers. Not our entire catalogue is as yet converted to ePub and Mobi. We're about half way there -- carefully working title by title -- and hope to have everything done and dusted by the end of November.

My tech partner is working 17-hour days 7 X 7 to make sure the conversions are perfect and I editorially reproof everything before it goes. Full conversion of a title (tech and ed) takes around twenty hours. Auto conversions does NOT produce a good result.

And don't forget that all our titles have been through a rigorous editing period of sometimes over a year before the final edited draft itself was fully proofed and cleared for original release in paperback.

Cheers. Neil

[MrPLD]

Neil,

I don't envy the amount of work you're having to go through but on the flip side you'll probably have some of the most professionally set eBooks on the market.

You're right about the auto-conversion process being a bit of a disaster. I downright nearly cried when I saw how ToL became mangled when converted from the LaTeX sources.

Looking forward to seeing BeWrite ascend into the market, will be nice to see more groups outside of the "big boys" having the same distribution rights.

Paul.

[neilmarr]

For an independent author, Paul, it looks like the easiest way is to have a mutually trusting pal in the US who's willing to lend you his tax number, Social Security number and bank details.

Otherwise you must land a deal with a publisher that has US representation or work through a partnership arrangement with a US-based organisation like Smashwords. Even Smashwords seems to have trouble getting into some stores, though. And -- although I think you can now upload your own ePubs to Smashwords -- the process (boss Mark Coker calls it 'the meatgrinder') is mostly about auto-conversion of files.

Cheers. Neil

[neilmarr]

By the way, Paul, did you hear the news this week that Lightning Source International (parent body Ingram's is the biggest book distributor on the planet) is opening a print and dispatch depot in Australia in June 2011? As far as paperback is concerned, this could be a huge bonus to you both.

We've used LSI for eight years and their product and service is tip top. But with bases in the UK and US, it's meant high shipping costs and mail delay getting books to buyers Down Under. LS has been talking about an Australian base for seven years, but every time we asked, they said that plans were on 'indefinite hold'. Then they sprang this on us out of the blue.

We were in the throes of closing a deal with an Oz printer when the news broke on Thursday. Of course there's now no need. The new LS Oz will save us weeks of technical work, perhaps years it would have taken to build a retail base in Australasia from the ground up, an accountancy nightmare ... and many, many thousands of dollars.

Cheers. Neil

[MrPLD]

Neil,

Yes, I received an email from them earlier last week, it was a great shining light of greatness for us, as we are already with LSI

Paul

[neilmarr]

A superb service, Paul. They've only once got it wrong for us. That was when we switched our account and account manager this year from the UK to the US. It caused a major accountancy headache for us on the royalties front. Their mistake, they readily agreed, and they pulled out all the stops to sort it out PDQ.

Another wee bonus if you give a damn about our planet and tomorrow's generation is their policy of using top quality but 'woodless' paper.

LS is pretty superb. Right now, we're negotiating a sale-or-return deal with them to make PoD books more attractive to brick and mortar stores. I'll keep you up to speed on that. It could make a massive difference to small houses like ours and indie authors like your wife.

Very best to both. Neil

[MrPLD]

Neil,

I have to agree, LSI has been very good for us. One thing I did notice was how heavy their stock is compared to other sources. Our 380pg 203x127mm book weighs in at just about 400g. I wasn't aware of their woodless paper, good to know.

Paul.

[neilmarr]

80gms woodless paper, Paul, with the very best of inks. Laminated gloss covers that are near indestructable, and with the toughest (non-animal) binding glues. A fine, fine presentation of a book. And don't forget, whether ebook or treebook, a book is its content ... not its reading platform. This perceived difference is what niggles me with those who deny the virtue of ebook reading and say that it's not the same as ... well, you know the rest. They might as well deny the virtues of cinema as an art form. Bestest. Neil

PS: Talking cinema, have you had the chance yet to see the Australian/French movie, *The Tree*? N

[desertgrandma]

Are you people still HERE???

This has got to be one of the longest 'introduce me' threads going...

[MrPLD]

Neil,

Well what do you know, when I do the math, sure enough it comes out right;

0.127 x 0.203 x 190 x 80 = 391g [ excluding covers ]

60gsm could have saved us a lot of postage when shipping from the UK


Desertgrandma,

Yes, we're still going, it's hard to stop when you've got an informative thread going with lots of exciting people in it

Paul.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Are you people still HERE???

This has got to be one of the longest 'introduce me' threads going...

that's what I thought, too, earlier today.

some record likely I wonder ?